Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 22, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Tuesday, May 22, 2018 CHRISTOPHER RUSH Publisher KATHRYN B. BROWN Owner DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW Time has come for solving West’s wild horse problem T he concept of wild horses run- ning as free as the wind across the open spaces of the West is admittedly appealing. The horses, which over the centuries have become a part of the Western landscape, offer a glimpse of the old days. But the difference between the concept of wild horses and the reality is vast. The reality is the population of invasive wild horses is so far out of control that they damage the land, streams and rivers, causing harm to the habitat of native species such as greater sage grouse, pronghorn, deer, elk, fish and bighorn sheep. By destroying range land and stream banks, the horses reverse any progress that has been made by land managers and ranchers aimed at restoring habitat. Ranchers say the wild horses have forced federal land managers to curtail livestock grazing in some areas. They fear the spiraling horse population will only mean more restrictions — and damage to range land. But there’s an even darker side to leaving wild horses unmanaged in the West. Just last month in Arizona, more than 100 wild horses died, the victims of the drought that has overcome parts of the state. More horses will die of thirst and starvation as the drought continues and the land cannot sustain them. Elsewhere, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management have struggled with the overwhelming number of horses. The estimated wild horse population has grown to 86,000 and ranchers say it could as much as double every four years. BLM has Larisa Bogardus/BLM A gather of wild horses from the Beaty Butte Management Area, adjacent to the Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in southern Oregon. The Bureau of Land Management has come up with four plans for managing wild horses. rounded up tens of thousands of horses, but without birth control and other efforts the population will continue to grow out of control. The cost of keeping horses in BLM holding facilities is estimated at $1 billion for their lifetime. The BLM has come up with a plan — actually, four plans — for reducing the wild horse population to 26,715, which they figure is a manageable and sustainable number. The plans include a variety of tactics, including the sale of horses without restriction, adoption, contraception and sterilization. One even suggests giving as much as $1,000 to anyone who adopts a horse. Because Congress has the ultimate say on how the BLM will proceed, it’s difficult to tell which option — or combination of options — will be used. We urge Congress to approve an effective combination that will help BLM managers get the wild horse problem under control as quickly as possible. Clearly, something needs to be done, because what’s already been done hasn’t worked. OTHER VIEWS The Mississippi man tried six times for the same crime O YOUR VIEWS Boycott Hermiston’s out- of-state commencement It’s a shame that a handful of individuals rewrote Hermiston High School’s history by altering the 2018 graduation commencement. They decided to move the ceremony out of state in another city. With all the property they gained from the vacant fairgrounds, they could have housed a ceremony with more than ample parking. Imagine being educated your long life in Hermiston, but how your special day has been decided by a few grads. Boycott your graduation. The high school has to give you your diploma. Hold your own ceremony in Hermiston. Shame on the individuals who came up with this plan — it’s obvious they weren’t Hermiston alums. Just don’t let this happen again in 2019. Boycott. Don Hansen, president Hermiston Class of 1960 Forest Service fire-fighting futility “Acts of futility” is an appropriate description of the U.S. Forest Service’s use of aircraft to fight forest fires today. But let’s examine the evidence that earns such criticism: First, there is little if any leadership. No one person is in charge. It looks like a pilot arrives at the fire site and dumps his load wherever he pleases. There is no designated area to attack and concen- trate their efforts to extinguish the fire. There is no follow-up of aircraft, one after another to keep the fire down. So after 10 minutes the fire has recovered and there is no evidence of the event. For a comparison, have your large army have its soldiers fight as indepen- dent solders with no command struc- ture. It would be a disaster for your army even though your army is substan- tially larger than your enemies’ army. Without a leader there is little evi- dence of coordination and timing. Those qualities can be explained as hitting the targeted fire area hard and keep hitting it hard, one after another. This prevents the fire from recovering and finally the selected area is completely extin- guished. Then they move on to the next selected area and repeat the same scene until all the entire fire is extinguished. In my article, I explain that the com- mander may hold a dozen or more of these very large aircraft in a queue and when they are all in position, he orders a long line of them to hit a specific tar- get, one after the other. (Of course they are flying at slightly different altitudes, generally above the preceding aircraft to avoid turbulence problems.) This defines coordination and timing. Another is their choice of aircraft. Helicopters are an expensive joke. Their tiny payloads, high acquisition cost and equally high operating cost make their use a gross waste of funds. Most of the balance of the aircraft also have grossly insufficient loads. This combination of all these fac- tors including a lack of being effec- tive make their use largely a waste of funds. It is also why sufficient numbers of aircraft were never purchased as they could not be justified. This fact is also behind why the U.S. Forest Service is proposing to stop using aircraft to fight forest fires. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. Joseph C. Coomer Oak Harbor, Wash. ne morning nearly 22 years during apartheid. “A human rights ago, four employees of a nightmare is occurring on our watch,” furniture store in a small she has written. When Americans today look back on Mississippi town were shot to death. the past, many of us wonder how our For months afterward, local law ancestors could have tolerated blatant enforcement seemed stumped by the injustices — like child labor, Jim Crow crime. Eventually, the top prosecutor or male-only voting — for so long. — Doug Evans — charged a former David When future generations look back on store employee, Curtis Flowers, Leonhardt our era, I expect they will ask a similar a black man who had no criminal Comment question. They will be outraged that we record. forcibly confined a couple million of our The case since then has been unlike any other I’ve ever heard of. Evans has fellow human beings to cages, often for no put Flowers on trial six separate times — even good reason. President Donald Trump and his attorney though no gun, fingerprints or other physical general, Jeff Sessions, are trying to make the evidence ties Flowers to the crime and no problem even worse, by locking up ever more witness even puts him at the store that day. At each of the first three trials, Flowers was people. But Trump and Sessions can’t squelch the convicted, but the Mississippi Supreme Court burgeoning, bipartisan movement for criminal- threw out all three convictions. The first two justice reform. They can’t, because as the times, it cited misconduct by Evans during the trial, and the third time it found that Evans recent Pulitzer-winning author James Forman Jr. points out, criminal justice happens mostly had kept African-Americans off the jury. The at the local and state levels. “We should justices called it as bad a case of such racial always remember that the fight is going to be discrimination “as we have ever seen.” at the local level,” Forman told NPR’s Terry The fourth trial was the first to have more Gross. “And, there, we continue to win.” than one black juror, and it ended with a hung To take one example, manufactured jury. The fifth also had multiple black jurors jailhouse confessions are a common part of and likewise ended in a mistrial. The sixth wrongful prosecutions (and are central to the trial had only one black juror, and Flowers Flowers case). With a shocking frequency, was convicted, thanks largely to dubious prosecutors and police coax so-called snitches circumstantial testimony that Evans had to lie outright about what other prisoners coached witnesses to give. say. In response, Texas enacted a law last I see no good reason to believe that Curtis year requiring the tracking of snitches and Flowers is guilty. Yet today he sits in solitary the disclosure of any plea deals to defense confinement, on death row, in Mississippi’s attorneys, who can then call the testimony into Parchman Prison. He is serving his 22nd question in front of a jury. Rebecca Brown of straight year behind bars, having never been the Innocence Project told me that the Texas released between convictions. He will turn 48 law was “excellent” — and that the Illinois years old next week. His parents continue to Legislature had passed an even better version, visit him as often as possible. awaiting the governor’s signature. His heartbreaking, enraging story is the Elsewhere, some district attorneys subject of a new podcast — the second are trying to make the system fairer on season of “In the Dark,” led by Madeleine their own. It’s happening in New York, Baran of American Public Media — that’s Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities. Most been downloaded more than 2 million times. prosecutors, after all, are decent, ethical The reporting and storytelling are fantastic, public servants. One change involves “open- and I can’t capture all of it here. If you aren’t file” policies, which give the defense attorney already listening to the podcast, I recommend access to all the evidence in a case. That may it. seem like an obvious step, and it’s the norm While the Flowers case is shocking in its in civil trials. Yet it remains rare in criminal details, it is all too typical in its broad strokes: trials. The United States suffers from a crisis of I don’t want to exaggerate the recent unjust imprisonment. The crisis has been progress. As you read this column, thousands caused partly by powerful, unaccountable upon thousands of American citizens sit prosecutors, like Doug Evans. And the costs behind bars, unjustly denied their freedom. are borne overwhelmingly by black men, like “Oooh, I miss Curtis,” his devastated father, Flowers. Archie Flowers, says on the podcast. “Yes. It We now know that dozens of innocent is rough. Rough, rough, rough, rough.” people have been executed in recent decades. But the Flowers family refuses to give Many others languish behind bars. My up hoping for justice. Curtis Flowers’ sixth colleague Nicholas Kristof, in his latest column, told the story of Kevin Cooper, who’s conviction is being appealed, and new evidence — uncovered by the podcast — on death row in California because of highly questionable evidence. Cases like these are the seems likely to help that appeal. If the Flowers family won’t give in to most extreme part of our mass-incarceration despair, nobody else should, either. problem. ■ As legal scholar Michelle Alexander has David Leonhardt is an op-ed columnist noted, a larger share of black Americans are for The New York Times. imprisoned than black South Africans were The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
